One Little Change
by prepare4trouble
Summary: Foggy makes a wish that he thinks will make things better. It doesn't.


A/N - Very random, this one. The idea popped fully formed into my head on Friday night as I tried to work out the plot to an entirely different fic while cycling home from work. My brain doesn't tend to enjoy focusing on the things I tell it to...

* * *

One Little Change

Foggy had walked that route through Central Park a hundred times and never noticed it before. Today, for some reason, he saw.

The well was old, the bricks in a circle around the hole dug deep into the ground looked like they had been weathered by centuries. Above it, he could still see the remnants of the winch that would have been used to fill a bucket with water. It made no sense for it to be there. It made no sense that he had never seen it before.

He stepped a little closer and peered over the edge. It appeared to go down forever, so deep that he could see nothing but blackness at the bottom. It made even less sense that nobody had thought to block it up, stop kids from thinking it might be a good idea to climb down there. He wondered how deep it actually was.

Curious, he reached into his pocket and fished out a coin. He held it over the edge of the well and let go, making a wish as he did. Maybe it was a wishing well. He listened carefully, waiting for the splash as it hit the water at the bottom. None came. He tried again with a heavier coin, maybe it had dried up and with something heavier he would be able to hear it hit the ground inside. He repeated his wish as he dropped the second coin. After all, it couldn't do any harm, right?

"Well," said a man, standing right next to him. "I don't know about that. A wish in the wrong hands can cause all kinds of trouble."

Foggy started abruptly, muscles jerking as his fight or flight instinct kicked in, readying him to flee.

"Hey," the man said. "Calm down, you're the one making the crazy wishes."

"Wha…" Foggy shook his head. "Where did you come from?"

The man was elderly, with bright white hair and clothes that looked as though they had seen better days. He held a wooden walking stick in his hands, leaning on it heavily. He spoke with an accent, English, he thought, but maybe not, Scottish? Irish? Some combination of all three?

The man indicated the well with a wave of his hand. "You woke me up," he said. "So, are you sure about this?"

Foggy blinked. "Sure about what?"

"Your wish. It's a little… extreme? Not in a bad way, it's just that most people wish to marry the girl of their dreams, or to suddenly get rich. I mean, I don't normally bother with those kinds of wishes unless I'm feeling generous, but this one? You've piqued my interest, shall we say? But it's going to mean going right back to the beginning. And you can't make a change like that without a sacrifice, you know that, I assume?"

"I don't…" Foggy shook his head as though to clear it. It didn't work, everything remained exactly where it was. "What are you talking about?"

"This friend of yours, Matt, was it? You wished he could have a more normal life. The thing is, his life took a turn for the abnormal more than twenty years ago. This is going to involve going back and switching things around. It's also going to require someone to take his place, and since I doubt volunteers will be queuing up for that job, it's going to have to be you."

Foggy's mind was racing, thinking over possibilities. Had he gone insane? Was he hallucinating? Could he still be asleep in bed? Was there any possibility at all that this was real?

"Now, I'm not saying things will turn out exactly the same for you as for him. You're your own person, after all. You might avoid his fate by simply being a little quicker and getting out of the way of the chemicals on the truck. You might decide not to save the old man at all. You might even get caught underneath the wheels and die. But that's all down to you. Your fate will be as much in your own hands as his was, and whatever happens you will have to live with the consequences."

Foggy took a deep breath. Everything felt real. If it was a dream, it was the most vivid one he had ever had.

"Yes or no, Foggy Nelson," the old man said. "I don't have all day, you know."

"Yes," Foggy said, and the world around him fell away.

* * *

He wasn't entirely sure what it was that brought him to this part of town. Hell's Kitchen wasn't huge, and he was definitely still in Hell's kitchen, but he didn't know the area, it wasn't near his home, or his school, it wasn't like there were any candy stores anywhere near selling treats that he couldn't get from his local one, which was his usual reason for straying off the beaten path. He had simply decided one day, for absolutely no reason, to take a walk.

Stupidest decision of his young life.

He hadn't known that at the time, of course. In fact, he had been feeling pretty damn good about the whole thing, slightly rebellious for wandering off into a not exactly great part of town without his parents' accompaniment or even their knowledge. He felt like he was finally growing up.

He noticed the truck in his peripheral vision as he strolled along the sidewalk. Something wasn't quite right, it was going too damn fast. He stopped, fascinated and horrified at the same time, frozen in place, somehow sensing an impending disaster before he even saw what was about to happen.

Just ahead of him on the sidewalk, an old man stepped out into the road. If the truck had been traveling at a normal pace, he might even have been able to cross before it reached him, but it wasn't, and he had a walking stick, and Foggy was absolutely certain that he hadn't seen what was coming.

"Hey!" he yelled, waving his hands in the air, heart pounding out of his chest. "Stop!"

The man didn't hear him. Foggy reacted entirely on instinct and adrenaline, leaping out into the road, pushing the old man out of the way of the oncoming truck. He didn't see it slow as the driver finally noticed what was happening and slammed on the brakes, but he heard the terrible squeal of rubber on asphalt. He was on the floor by then, and the truck was still coming. He rolled out of the way, dodging one of its huge wheels by less than an inch. There was a loud metallic crash as the truck's cargo came loose and fell to the ground. Something hit him directly in the face.

He lay dazed in the street, chaos all around him, people running, screaming, the stench of burning rubber and some unknown chemical. He hurt. His arm was the worst, he was sure it was broken. He rested his head back onto the road and stared up at the sky. Somebody approached him and he shifted his head to look, as he did, the world faded to black.

"Careful," he heard somebody shout. "Look at the symbols on those canisters, that stuff's radioactive or something.

What remained of the world faded away too as he lost consciousness.

* * *

He was all moved in. Sort of. The bags were unpacked and his clothes transferred into one of the two identical sets of drawers and wardrobes, his laptop was set up and good to go, even if he was just using it to play music so far. The shelf above the bed heaved with copies of his favorite books, the ones he hadn't been able to bear parting with even though they were huge and heavy and the chances were that he was going to be too busy studying to read anything recreationally anyway. Well, studying and drinking. And meeting girls. But mostly studying. And drinking. Because what was the point of reaching the legal drinking age and not drinking? It would be a waste.

He grinned and stretched out on the bed. His computer randomly selected one of his favorite songs.

Someone knocked at the door.

Foggy sat up. "Yeah?" he shouted.

The door opened and he heard a nervous heartbeat and breathing. He ignored it, closed his eyes and blocked it out.

"Uh, hey," said his visitor. "Room 312?" There was a rustling of paper as he checked the information sheet he would have received in the post against the number on the door. What kind of an idiot doesn't do that before he walks in? "Yeah, right place. So, I guess you're my roommate?"

Okay, so he was a bit nervous and weird, but he sounded nice. Foggy grinned as he got to his feet and held out a hand in greeting. "I guess I must be. Foggy Nelson, nice to meet you."

The roommate hesitated. Foggy was undeterred, he thrust his hand a little closer. "Take the hand, dude, the blind thing isn't contagious, I promise." He grinned wider.

"Sorry, just… bags." There was the sound of a bag being deposited on the floor next to him, and then his new roommate took Foggy's hand. His palm was warm, probably from the exertion of carrying his bag up the stairs. Or embarrassment, because people got that way around him sometimes. But probably the stairs.

"Matt," the roommate said. "Matt Murdock. Nice to meet you. Sorry, I really did have my hands full."

Foggy shrugged. "Yeah, don't we all? Seriously, it took me about three months to pack, trying to decide what I could do without. The answer was none of it, but I guess hard decisions have to be made, right? I mean, did I really need the entire Harry Potter series of actual books when I have the audio versions on my iPod? Probably not, but here they are anyway." He indicated the shelf above his bed with a wave of his hand.

"I never read them," Matt told him. He heard Matt unzip his bag. So far, he had only heard one hit the floor. He listened a little more carefully, allowing some of the noise he usually blocked to come in. There didn't seem to be any more bags. The zipper was short as he opened it, it wasn't even that big a bag.

Foggy frowned. "Seriously? Well, that's something you need to rectify immediately. I'd offer to lend you them, but since I doubt you read Braille, it'd be a bit of an empty gesture."

No response. Or maybe there was one, but he wasn't picking up on it. Some people just didn't know how to deal with a blind person. That just didn't mean the stuff that you had to learn, like how to guide him, but simple things too, like don't rely too heavily on gestures like nods and head shaking or facial expressions and eye contact to carry a conversation.

"Hey," Foggy tried. "How do you feel about coffee? Because I'm jonesing for a latte and there's this place on campus that smells amazing. You up for it? My treat."

* * *

"I think I remember the accident," Matt said. "I mean, I do remember it, it wasn't far from where I lived, the road was closed for the whole of the next day while they cleaned it up. I just didn't know anyone had been hurt."

Foggy smiled and shrugged. He had a nice smile, Matt noted. Very genuine, even with his eyes behind his dark glasses, he could tell that there was nothing hidden. "I broke my arm. I think the old dude, broke a bone or two too, but it beats getting squashed by a truck." He winced at the idea.

"Yeah, but you… Matt broke off awkwardly. He gestured toward Foggy's eyes, then realized the futility of the gesture and dropped his hand down to the table.

Foggy shrugged again, he didn't smile this time. "Yeah, that too."

Matt lapsed into silence, thinking about it. "I used to walk down that road all the time," he said. Most other days I'd have been there when it happened, I don't even know why I wasn't that day. The next day, all the kids at school were talking about it, I remember wishing I'd been there so I could join in."

"You should have just lied," Foggy said. "Made something up, they'd never have known the difference anyway. Instant popularity. I never actually got that, because by the time I got back to school the whole thing had been forgotten and I was just this kind of novelty act for them to gawp at."

"How old were you then?" Matt asked. "Nine, ten?"

"Nine," Foggy told him.

Matt licked his lips and stared into the distance. "I can't imagine what that must have been like for you."

Foggy looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, it was no picnic, I can tell you that much. For a start, I was terrified the whole time that as soon as my parents got over the crying and blaming themselves, they'd get around to realizing I shouldn't have been anywhere near that place and start yelling. Then there was the sensory issues…"

Matt frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, just… nothing important. I got over it, mostly. One of the more sucky things about it was the getting held back a year in school, you know, because suddenly not being able to read any more makes it difficult to keep up with your classmates. So when I finally went back, I was put in with all these little kids from the grade below me, so I stuck out in two ways."

Matt nodded. Then he realized that his new room mate wouldn't know that. "I nodded," he supplied.

"Oh yeah?"

"Sorry."

"For nodding? I think I can forgive you."

Matt shook his head. "No, for everything."

"Not your fault. Anyway, it worked out fine in the end. Not only did I study my ass off and get put back into my old class a couple years later, I also kept on studying my ass off, and look where I ended up."

Matt smiled. Positivity. That was why he wouldn't be able to do what Foggy did. He didn't have that mindset.

"Want to know the worst thing about it?"

Matt frowned. Foggy was grinning now, which made no sense. "Sure?"

Foggy's grin widened. "I used to be scared of the dark!" He laughed out loud.

Matt didn't say anything. He sat frozen, hands wrapped around the cup of coffee on the table in front of him, imagining a scared little boy, still old enough to believe in monsters lurking in the dark, finding out that from now on darkness would be all he would ever see.

"Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"That's the part where you're supposed to laugh."

He couldn't bring himself to do it.

* * *

The first time it happened was one of their first excursions to a bar off campus. Matt felt Foggy's hesitation as they stepped through the door, his hand tightened slightly on his arm and his steps slowed just a little. Matt stopped and turned back to look at him. "You okay?"

Foggy nodded and plastered on a smile. "Absolutely. Cheap alcohol, beautiful girls, bring it on."

"How do you know if they're beautiful?"

Foggy's smile grew enigmatic. "Everyone can be beautiful when you can't see them, buddy. That's the great thing about being blind. That, and I'll never have to worry about someone asking me to be the designated driver."

Matt continued into the bar, deposited Foggy at a table in the middle of the room and went to buy some drinks. The queue was three people thick and by the time he finally managed to battle his way through and catch the eye of one of the bartenders, Foggy had been left alone for well over ten minutes. Matt turned around expecting to see his roommate the centre of attention as usual, or trying to chat up some invariably gorgeous girl. Instead, he found him leaning over the table like he was already drunk, hands covering both his ears and an expression of pure agony on his face.

Matt pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring the angry cries as splashes of the forgotten drinks landed on the surrounding bar patrons. He reached Foggy with two half empty glasses and put them on the table. He touched his arms with both of his hands. "Foggy?"

Foggy didn't respond. If anything, the pained expression on his face grew worse.

"Shit," he started to rub his hands up and down Foggy's arms, hoping that the feeling would rouse him from whatever it was that was happening. Foggy tried to pull away, wincing as though it hurt him. "Hey, come on," Matt said. He tried another tactic, stepping around to the side of him and slipping an arm around his back. He pulled, and Foggy didn't resist. He got to his feet and allowed Matt to half carry him out of the bar and into the street.

It didn't help much. Matt mulled over his options; sit down there in the street and wait for Foggy to recover a little from whatever it was, call an ambulance, or try to get him home to the dorm. He went for option three, and continued to walk in the direction of the campus, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other until they were climbing the steps of the building and he was turning his key in the door.

He deposited Foggy on his bed. Foggy opened his top drawer and reached a visibly shaking hand inside. He pulled out a large pair of what looked like over-ear headphones and placed them on his ears. Matt watched him relax almost instantly. His breathing was shallow and hunched over sitting on the side of the bed, it looked as though he had shrunken somehow. He shivered and ran a shaky hand over his face, dislodging his sunglasses as he did. They fell to the floor near his feet. Matt picked them up and placed them on top of the set of drawers. He pushed the top drawer closed to ensure Foggy wouldn't walk into it later.

"Foggy?" He said quietly.

No response.

"Do you need me to call anyone? A doctor? An ambulance? Your parents?"

Foggy took a shaky but deep breath in and then slowly out again.

"Foggy?" Matt tried again.

His eyes opened. He stared straight ahead, almost as though he were looking directly at Matt. His gaze was unfocussed, but intense and sharp. Matt found himself drawn to it, unable to look away. It was the first time he had seen Foggy's eyes for more than a second, he had expected there to be some sign of the injury that had blinded him, but they were perfect, and beautiful.

Foggy took another deep breath, less shaky this time. "No," he said. "No, don't call anyone. Especially not my parents. I'm fine."

Matt frowned, doubtful.

"Seriously," Foggy assured him. He reached his hands up to his ears and tentatively lifted one of the headphones from his ear. He smiled and removed them. "Right," he said. "So, that was embarrassing."

"What was it?" Matt asked.

Foggy shrugged. "It's kind of a long story," he said.

"Right." Matt walked to his side of the room, grabbed the chair from underneath his desk and pulled it over. "So, what was it?" he asked.

Foggy shook his head and waved his hand vaguely in the direction of his desk. "Do me a favor? Put some music on. Anything on my laptop's good, but preferably not the heavy rock."

Matt obliged, opening his laptop and selecting something he was familiar with. The first chords of Drops of Jupiter filled the room.

"A little quieter," Foggy said.

Matt hit the volume button, then sat back down. "Okay?" he asked.

Foggy nodded. "It'll do." He took a deep breath, then reached for his glasses. He found them on the first attempt and placed them back over his eyes. "It started happening right after the accident," he said. "It was gradual at first, like I'd start hearing things I was pretty sure I shouldn't be able to hear, like people arguing on the next block, or every word my mom and dad were saying when they whispered to each other while I was in bed."

His face took on a slightly bitter expression and Matt hesitated, not sure what he was supposed to say.

"They split up when I was eleven," Foggy added. "I'd love to have believed them when they said it wasn't because of me, but I'm not that stupid. Raising a disabled kid isn't easy, it puts a lot of strain on a relationship. Plus I guess they had other issues, but yeah."

Matt reached a hesitant hand across and touched Foggy awkwardly on the shoulder. Foggy looked surprised for a moment, then smiled.

"Sorry, here's me lamenting about my parents marital troubles, and there's you with… all your stuff. You must think I'm an asshole."

"No!" Matt shook his head vehemently from side to side. "No, of course not."

Foggy shrugged. "Well, I kinda feel like one anyway. Anyhow, they split up, but they still worked together to take me to just about every doctor in the city. One time we even flew all the way to LA to see a specialist. By that point I was a bit of a wreck, I was out of school again and I pretty much just sat there covering my ears all day. My clothes hurt my skin, I couldn't bear to eat anything with any flavor at all. But nobody knew what was up with me."

"Did they ever find out?" Matt asked him.

Foggy shook his head. "Most of the doctors tried to convince me it was all in my head, I even believed them for a while. I mean, maybe I wasn't really hearing things happening six blocks away, maybe I was making the things I was hearing up and convincing myself they were real. No way to verify it, right?"

Matt didn't answer. Somewhere deep in his memory, something stirred. Cotton on over-sensitive skin, scratching like sandpaper. He blinked, and it was gone.

"Well, it was real," Foggy said. "I started listening to the news, trying to match up stories to things I'd heard during the night. God, Matt, some of them were awful things, and they were all true. It was around then that I started teaching myself how to block it out. One time this old guy came round, knocked on my mom's door and demanded to see me. Said he could teach me how to use it instead. She sent him packing though. It was probably for the best, he did have this weird vibe about him, and really, I didn't want to use it, I just wanted it gone."

"And you managed it? You got rid of it?"

Foggy shrugged. "As tonight proved, not so much. But most of the time I can dial it back to an acceptable level. My mom bought me all kinds of things to help, like the ear defenders, clothes that weren't so scratchy, she stopped using the really stinky cleaning products, stopped trying to make me eat the textures and flavors that I couldn't stand, and eventually I got back on my feet. It's just sometimes my control slips and I get overwhelmed by it all over again. It hasn't happened in nearly a year though. It's just that bar was so loud and there were so many smells, and…" he broke off. "Sorry," he said. "I should probably have warned you that this was a possibility, I just really thought I was over it now."

He probably should have told him, Matt agreed. He shook his head. "It's fine," he said. "Just as long as you're okay."

"I am," Foggy assured him. "Well, I will be. Right now, I just want to sleep for about a day."

"Right," Matt said. He got to his feet. "Yeah, of course. Sorry. I'l just…" he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the other side of the room. He had some reading to do anyway. In fact, going out had been a pretty dumb idea considering how much work they both had to get through in the next few days. "I'll try to keep it down," he said. "Or I can go to the library if you prefer. Yeah, I'll do that."

Foggy shook his head. "It's fine, stay here. I'm going to wear the ear defenders tonight anyway." He got to his feet and switched off the music.

Something occurred to Matt suddenly. "This explains your bed," he said.

"My bed?"

"The sheets."

Foggy frowned, he ran a hand over the smooth surface of his bed, then nodded. "Oh right, the silk. Yeah. I didn't even realize you'd noticed. You can smell it, right?"

"Uh," Matt took a deep breath in through his nose, just out of interest, "No. I can see it."

"Oh," Foggy paused, looking thoughtful. His hand traced the fabric for a second time. "Yeah, that makes more sense. Sorry, head's all still a little…" he indicated confusion with a spin of his hand by his right temple. "I never actually saw them, I guess they're shiny or something? Anyway, yeah. Nice and smooth, means I can sleep without being woken up every time I turn over. The skin sensitivity's the thing I still have the most trouble with. I also have to cut the labels out of my clothes, which is a total pain in the ass when finding the label is the best way to check you're not putting something on back to front."

* * *

Matt woke screaming as the last trace of the nightmare faded away in the glow of daylight through his bedroom window. He reached up and dragged a hand over his face, wiping away the sweat. He could still almost feel the pain of the many wounds inflicted on him in the dream. He shivered, remembering the agony as the blade hit him again and again, the heat of the flames as his adversary burned, and then the other man… he sat up in bed and tried to chase the memory of the dream away. He looked across the room. Foggy was awake and dressed already, sitting at his desk, fingers holding his place in the Braille textbook he was studying, with a concerned expression on his face.

"Sorry," Matt muttered. He pushed his covers aside and swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. He shivered.

"What the hell was that?" Foggy asked, "Because it sounded like someone was trying to kill you in your sleep."

Matt shrugged. "Uh, yeah. Recurring nightmare. I've had it since I was a kid, but it seems to be getting more intense lately." "Wanna talk about it?"

He shook his head. "Like you said, someone trying to kill me. I can't see who it is, it's completely dark in the room, but whoever he is, he can fight. And so can I. I beat him, but then someone else comes in and tries to finish me off. Someone huge. I can't see him either, but I hear his voice. He's terrifying. Dangerous. I always wake up before he finishes me off, but I don't think I win."

Foggy smiled nervously. "Wow. I thought I had bad dreams sometimes. You've been having that dream since you were a kid?!"

"On and off," Matt said. "It got worse after my dad died, in the orphanage, but it went away for a while."

"Shit. Well, I'd maybe lay off the action movies for a while," Foggy suggested, maybe stick to Disney or something. Speaking of," he grinned, "how do you feel about providing the audio description for Brave tonight. I managed to procure a… less than legal copy of it from my buddy Brett when we met up the other night. Not even in theaters yet!"

Matt took a long drink from the glass of water by his bed, then pushed off what remained of his bedcovers and stood up. "Brett the cop?" He asked. "You're studying to be a lawyer while buying pirate DVDs from a cop?"

"No," Foggy assured him. "What do you think I am? He gave it to me for free."

* * *

"Foggy, is it weird to not know what I look like," Matt asked.

They were both quite a few drinks in at a quiet bar too far from campus to be popular with the students. Foggy would have been fine somewhere busier tonight, he was feeling very in control, he had for weeks, not a single slip. It was Matt that craved solitude. One day, he was going to make a very successful hermit.

Foggy took a long sip of his beer and mulled over the question. It was a strange one, not least because it should have made complete sense but somehow didn't. "I dunno," he confessed. "I suppose it is, in a way, but I'm used to that. The weird thing is, I feel like I know exactly what you look like."

"From that time you touched my face?"

Foggy burst out laughing at the memory. He shook his head. "Oh man, what were we drinking that night? Yeah, sure, I guess that feeds into it, but I've got this image in my head, you know? An actual image. I don't really get that with people I didn't know before, but you? Clear as day, figuratively speaking."

He took another long drag of his beer, finished it off and smacked the glass down onto the table dramatically. He heard Matt take a less extreme gulp. He had at least half a glass left, but Foggy raised a hand in the air to attract the attention of the barmaid.

"So what do I look like?" Matt asked, curious.

Foggy shrugged. "Well, you're gorgeous," he said, "and you have just about the prettiest eyes I've ever seen. Funny thing is, whenever I imagine you, you're always covering them up with these incredibly cool sunglasses. I'd love to get myself some exactly the same. Too bad I don't think they'd suit me as much."

* * *

"I just don't think she did it," Matt said. He was leaning back in his chair, Foggy could hear the rusty metal creaking. If he wasn't careful, the whole thing was going to collapse and leave him sprawled in a hilarious heap on the floor.

Foggy decided not to mention that. Instead he shrugged. "Yeah, you're probably right, but what are we supposed to do? We need clients that can actually afford to pay us, and this Karen Page person can't. I know it doesn't make that much difference to me, but I'm assuming you'd prefer it if we could afford to keep the lights on?"

Matt leaned forward, the chair creaked again and Foggy winced as the sound assaulted his ears. Could Matt really not hear that? "It's not about that, Foggy. It's about an innocent woman arrested for something she didn't do. We can help her, isn't that why we got into this business in the first place?"

Foggy got to his feet and started to pace the office slowly with measured steps. He was still learning the space, and he was careful not to bump any forgotten furniture, but sometimes moving just helped him to think. "Yes and no," he said. "I mean, sure it's good to help people, but do you know what's also good? Being able to afford to eat. Word gets out we do pro bono like this, every single criminal without two cents to rub together is going to be beating down our door. Is that what we want?"

"No, of course not…" Matt began.

"Not to mention, you don't know she's innocent, do you? I mean, sure she talks a good game, but think about it Matt, she is the only suspect they have, and that's not down to sloppy police work, that's because there is not a single other person that could have done it. You don't want her to be guilty, that doesn't mean she isn't." He paused and grinned at Matt. "Let me guess, she's a looker, isn't she?"

Matt floundered for a moment, then sighed. "I don't see what that's got to do with anything."

"Ha! I knew it. You're so predictable, buddy. Okay, instead of letting yourself get charmed by a pretty face, why don't you let me call my friend Gary at the DA's office tomorrow, see if I can find out what they're thinking. Maybe I can talk them down to a manslaughter charge, if we get the right judge she'll be out in five to ten."

Matt sighed and Foggy smiled, he knew he had won.

"This is the best thing." Foggy added. "I don't like it any more than you do, but trust me, we're doing her a favor. They charge her with murder two and we fight it, what happens if we lose?"

Matt sighed. "Yeah, okay. If you can get her a good deal, and if she'll take it."

Foggy pointed his index finger directly at Matt's face and smiled. "Right decision," he said. "Look at us, making professional decisions like a couple of real lawyers. Take that Landman and Zack! Never make it on our own my ass! Now, what do you say we see if we can find ourselves some paying clients?"

* * *

There was something very wrong in the city. Matt could feel it deep down inside him, something eating away at the heart and soul of the place like a cancer, draining away everything that he loved and slowly replacing it with something else. People he knew smiled and nodded as he passed them in the street, the sun shone down from a brilliant blue sky, and something was terribly wrong.

"Hey, cheer up," Foggy told him as they tucked into Chinese food straight from the carton one lunch time, chop suey for Matt, plain rice and vegetables for Foggy.

Matt glanced at him, confused.

"What?" Foggy asked. "You think I don't notice? I can sense that black cloud that's been following you around for weeks. Stop it, things are finally going our way."

Matt sighed. He was right, things were starting to look up. He genuinely believed that they had a chance of winning Elena Cardenas' case, not to mention the steady stream of paying clients that had begun to show up at their door recently. They weren't exactly turning a profit yet, but they were keeping their heads above water, and that was really all they could hope for so soon.

"You're going to make me come over there and slap you, aren't you?" Foggy said. His left hand fiddled with a plastic dinosaur on his desk, they usually lived in a drawer, but today one of them had made a rare appearance.

"Sorry," Matt said. "You're right, things are good."

"Oh yeah? Then why aren't you sharing my awesome mood? C'mon, Matt, smile for a change, I can hear it in your voice and I kinda miss it recently." He picked up the dinosaur and tossed it across the room. His aim was uncanny, the hard plastic hit Matt on the side of his head as he chewed a mouthful of his lunch. It dropped down onto the floor next to him.

Matt reached down and picked up the toy. "Ouch," he said pointedly.

Foggy laughed. "Bullseye," he said, and Matt felt a strange chill of something not unlike deja vu.

He ignored it and tossed the toy back across the room. Foggy raised a hand and caught it deftly. Matt's mouth dropped open and he stared. "How..?"

"Oh, that?" Foggy grinned and ate another spoonful of rice. "It's a thing I can do sometimes. Don't know how. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's not reliable enough to be a party trick, unfortunately."

* * *

Wilson Fisk made a lot of sense. Matt scanned the front cover of the newspaper over breakfast one morning. It was dominated by a close-up of Fisk's face along with the highlights of his speech the day before. The story inside covered his life from his Hell's Kitchen childhood to the business empire he headed today. It was all very inspirational. Matt didn't like it one bit.

He closed the newspaper and switched on the TV. He sighed. Fisk stood there once again, tall and proud on the steps of city hall. He opened his mouth and began spelling out his vision for the city, and Matt froze.

The voice was deep and passionate, and it aroused the memory of a dozen nightmares in a pitch black room, blows raining down on his already badly beaten body, the voice in the blackness. Fisk. All this time, the man from his nightmares had been Wilson Fisk.

He struggled to his feet, reeling with this new knowledge, trembling in fear and anger. He stumbled as a wave of confusion washed over him. Everything was wrong. This wasn't his apartment. The light was too bright, he felt like he couldn't hear anything, smell anything, as though the world had been dialed back somehow. He tried to keep breathing while he did the only thing he could think of to do; he reached into his pocket for his phone and called Foggy.

The line rang and nobody answered.

* * *

When he arrived at work, an hour late and still shaken, he found Foggy in his office, slumped over the desk. Paperwork and notes in both Braille and print outlining the details of Elena Cardenas' case were strewn around him on the floor. Foggy's glasses had been dropped to the ground not far from his feet and the skin around his eyes was red and puffy with tears.

Matt crossed the room in two seconds, picking up the glasses and putting them on the desk to prevent them from getting broken.

"She's dead, Matt," Foggy said. His voice came out as a hoarse croak, dry and broken. "Mrs Cardenas. They... They need someone to go identify the body. I've been waiting for you for… he reached for his watch to check the time and touched a bare wrist. As though that was the great tragedy here, a sob forced its way out from somewhere deep within him. He wiped compulsively at his eyes. "Shit. Where the hell were you? We need to go."

* * *

The city stank, and if Matt could smell it, he didn't even want to think about what it was doing to Foggy. They sat at their usual table in Josie's bar, drinking steadily. Matt watched out of the corner of his eye as a drug deal went down at a table in the corner. The dealer was obviously armed, the telltale bulge in the side of his coat revealed his weapon. The buyer handed over a roll of banknotes which the dealer slipped into his pocket without checking, then handed over a brown bag. It was big enough that Matt could tell it wasn't for personal use.

"What's up with you?" Foggy asked.

"Drug deal going down in the corner."

Foggy's face screwed up into anger and frustration and he got to his feet. "Hey, Josie," he yelled.

Matt tugged at his arm, coaxing him back into his seat as the ever-present owner walked up to the table and placed another bottle in the center. "Shut up," he said. "Don't draw attention." But Foggy was drunk and angry, and in his own way he felt just as strongly about the city as Matt.

"Josie, you need to be more careful about who you let into your bar," he said.

She looked ashamed for a moment, then she leaned in closer. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "Other places have tried reporting them to the cops, something always happens to them. You hear about Mikey's place on 9th? Electrical fault, they said. The kids throwing bottles of accelerant through the window in the middle of the night was just a co-incidence."

Matt nodded. "He owns the cops," he said.

"Yeah, well after the election Mr Fisk will take care of them," Josie said. "Just gotta wait it out."

* * *

Matt hadn't seen Foggy smile in months. Not since Mrs Cardenas, not since they got their first glimpse of how deep the corruption went. There was nothing they could do to fight it, it had infiltrated every layer of government, the police, the press, other law firms, and at its head sat Wilson Fisk, the man that could do no wrong in the eyes of the city.

"We could always pack up and leave," Matt suggested. "Start again somewhere else, maybe pass the bar in another state. His influence doesn't stretch too far outside of Hell's Kitchen, we get out of New York altogether, we could be free."

Foggy licked his lips. "You wouldn't be happy," he said. "You love this place."

"I used to. It's not the same place any more, the rot is too deep, even if by some miracle we could get it out, it would be too late."

Foggy sighed and shook his head. He took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes, tears that Matt hadn't even noticed. "I wouldn't be happy either, Matt. We can't just abandon the place, not after everything. We can't just write it off and move away."

"I don't know that we have a choice," Matt told him.

* * *

The knock on his door came in the late evening as he was thinking about going to bed. Matt turned off the music he was playing, put his book down on the table, pages sprawled downward to keep his page, and peered through the peephole in the door. The light was on the fritz again, and he could make out a man standing there, but no details that would tell him who he was. He opened the door anyway. If it was one of Fisk's thugs, they wouldn't have bothered knocking.

The man looked to be in his seventies, if not older. His back was bent slightly, giving him a hunched appearance. His face was covered with deep wrinkles and his hair was a brilliant shade of white. He supported his weight with a wooden stick which he leaned on heavily. He didn't wait for an invitation, he stepped uninvited into Matt's apartment.

"I thought this might be fun," he said. "Turns out you were more important than I realized."

"Uh…" Matt stepped back to allow the man entry and closed the door behind him. "I'm sorry? Can I help you?"

He sighed deeply. "It's going to take a lot of explaining," he said. "I don't suppose I could trouble you for a drink, could I? This might take some time."

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Matt said. He took a sip of his coffee, it had gone cold in the time he had sat, listening to the man's story. He drank it anyway. "You're saying that Foggy in this alternate timeline made some kind of a deal to change my life, and as a result, Fisk gained control of Hell's Kitchen."

"Not just Hell's Kitchen," the man said. He took a sip of his own coffee and Matt noticed steam still rising from the surface as though the time had not touched it. "He's got fingers in a lot of pies, as they say. Some of them are quite a lot further afield."

"So, in the original history, we beat him," Matt said.

"You were going to. Your friend came to me before you had the chance, but yes, things were going to play out quite a bit differently."

Matt drained the remaining cold coffee and put his cup down on the table next to the forgotten book. "You must know how this sounds," he said.

The man nodded. "Absolutely insane," he agreed. This is why I don't approach people to make these kinds of arrangements, I wait for them to come to me."

"So what change did he make?" Matt asked. He couldn't help but be curious, even if the chances of any of this being true were slim to none. Had Foggy allegedly changed his father's fate? In the original timeline had Jack Murdock lived? Had he never been sent to St Agnes? Or perhaps he had lost his father sooner. Perhaps his mother had stayed. Or maybe it was something more simple. Had they met sooner than they should, or later?

"He switched places with you, just for an hour or so, one afternoon when you were nine."

Matt frowned. "Switched places how, like swapped bodies?" he shook his head. That was a step too far toward insanity.

"No, of course not. What would that have achieved? No, he switched physical places with you, put himself on a street where you should have been, while you found yourself playing on the swings in a park at the other side of Hell's Kitchen."

Matt's eyes widened as he remembered that day. He had no memory of how he had gotten there or why, but it had taken him over an hour to find his way home, and by that time the whole area was filled with chaos because of… He shook his head. "The accident. The one where he lost his sight."

The old man nodded.

Matt felt like he needed to sit down. He realized he was already sitting. He needed to lay down. "This is insane," he said. "You can't just change history."

The man shrugged. "Funny how I did it, then."

"But…" Matt shook his head. "Even if it were possible, how would that change anything that was happening with Fisk?"

"Well, that's an even longer story, and one that I doubt you would believe if I told you."

Matt refrained from pointing out that he barely believed this story. Of course, the man did seem to know things that he shouldn't have been able to.

"So, in this original history, I was the one who saved the old man. I was the one who was…"

"Blinded," the man finished for him. "Yes. Among other things."

Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "I need to speak to Foggy," he said. "I need to ask him about this."

"He doesn't remember. My conversation with him happened in another timeline. He has no idea that this is not how things are supposed to be. When you were nine years old, you lost your sight. But you gained something in return, and it is that that will allow you to save your city. But first you need to agree to put things right."

"I don't… Why don't you just change it back, if it's so much worse now? Why have you come to me about it first?"

The old man shrugged. "There are rules. I can't just do things because I want to. I need someone to ask for it. And from what I've seen of you and your friend Foggy, frankly, I thought you were the safer bet."

In law school, not long after he had met Foggy, he had closed his eyes and tried to imagine that he would never be able to open them again. He hadn't been able to do it. He had thought of navigating the city without sight, learning how to do every single thing again, from walking to reading to buying something in a store, having to rely on the honesty of other people when dealing with money. It was too much. He had opened his eyes again and offered up a prayer that he would never need to learn those skills.

He thought of Foggy, so confident, utterly indifferent most of the time to the fact that he could not see. It genuinely didn't seem to bother him, at least not any more. Once, of course, it must have been devastating. Now, it was just another part of who he was. Matt knew that he would never be able to be like that. He would never be able to smile through the darkness, crack jokes about it, laugh at his own expense. He would never be able to master the skills needed to do what Foggy did every day.

"I can't," he said, and he hated himself for his fear.

"He did. For you."

Outside, he heard a series of gunshots, the loud sound cutting through the silence of the night, and then nothing. No screams, no approaching sirens or noise from the street. He waited, listening for a response. Nobody came. The city was dying, night by night, strangled by Fisk's growing web of influence. Matt closed his eyes.

"The city will be saved?"

The old man shrugged. "No guarantees. But it certainly won't be like this"

"And I won't remember any of this?"

"Do you remember the other world?"

Matt frowned, his eyes were still closed, still imagining. "I think I do. I get flashes sometimes, things that don't seem right, memories, dreams." It was the reason he hadn't kicked the old man out an hour ago, something in his story did appear to make sense.

"Then, maybe you will."

Matt nodded. He opened his eyes. He still didn't believe, not really. But on the chance that it was true, "Will you give me one more day? I'll agree if you'll wait twenty four hours."

"Make it twelve and you have a deal," the old man said. Matt checked the time on his watch first. It was almost midnight. He would have until just before noon the next day. It would be enough. He held out a hand to shake on their deal.

The old man shook his head. "You have to say the words. Or think them at least. Make a wish, and you have to mean it."

Matt licked his lips. He took a deep breath and planned his words carefully. "I wish the world would be the way it should be."

The old man smiled and took Matt's hand, his palm was cool to the touch. They shook hands, and the man disappeared before his eyes.

* * *

"You do realize that we have clients we need to be building cases for," Foggy said. "I mean, not that a morning off work isn't great and all, but we're in court next week and we have pretty much nothing that isn't going to be shot down instantly by the prosecution."

Matt led Foggy to a bench, "Let's sit down here," he said.

Foggy shrugged. "Fine, whatever. At least you picked a nice warm day for your mental breakdown."

Matt looked at his watch. He had just under five minutes left. Well, that or he was insane, he wasn't quite sure yet. In five minutes he would know one way or the other. He found his gaze drawn to the sky, it was a brilliant shade of blue, broken by clouds that only served to accentuate it's beauty.

Foggy sighed, he tilted his head toward the sun and smiled. It was the first time Matt had seen him smile in months. Longer, probably. He examined his face closely, taking in every little detail and filing them away, hoping that he might be able to hold on to them.

"You're a good friend, Foggy," Matt told him. "I don't say it enough, but really. You're the best person I know."

Foggy's smile widened. "I know," he said, "You're damn lucky to have me, Murdock. But, you know what? I'm lucky to have you too. Can you imagine what would have happened if we'd been assigned different roommates in law school?"

Matt shook his head. "No," he admitted. "I don't think I want to. One little change can make a huge difference."

"Well," Foggy said, "things tend to work out exactly how they're supposed to, right?"

Matt opened his mouth to answer, but before he had the chance, he was hit by the strangest sensation as the world around him began to fall away.


End file.
